How to implement tag counting

Question

I have my tags desinged like this in my database:

Table: Item 
Columns: ItemID, Title, Content 

Table: Tag 
Columns: TagID, Title 

Table: ItemTag 
Columns: Ite         


        

Answer 1

Add another column in the table Tag that work as counter. When you add or remove a tag from an item you update the counter (in other words, when add a row on Itemtag increment the counter on Tag table, when remove decrement the counter)

add tag to item:

INSERT INTO Itemtag (itemid,tagid) VALUES ('$itemid','$tagid');
UPDATE Tag SET counter=counter+1 WHERE tagid='$tagid';

remove tag from item

DELETE FROM Itemtag WHERE itemid='$itemid' AND tagid='$tagid';
UPDATE Tag SET counter=counter-1 WHERE tagid='$tagid';

retrieve item tags with counter

SELECT t.title, t.counter FROM Itemtag AS it JOIN Tag AS t ON t.idtag=it.tagid 
WHERE it.itemid='$itemid'